Many Xinjiang experts say the outlawing of veils and the heavy-handed enforcement of the rules would further stigmatise the region’s minority Uighurs.

[…]James Leibold, an expert on China’s ethnic policy from Melbourne’s La Trobe University, said the ban on the veils would make them “more popular as a symbol of resistance and assertion of ethno-national identity”.

“The Party has drawn a one-to-one link between these styles of head, face and body covering and religious extremist thought and violence,” said Leibold, who is researching anti-veiling practices in Xinjiang.

“It’s a very crude and counterproductive way of trying to deal with the problem of terrorism.” [Source]

Leibold, who is currently studying Xinjiang’s anti-veiling campaign, spoke at length to the New York Times last week about ethnic policy in the region.

The Urumqi ban is the latest in a series of attempts to police clothing and facial hair in Xinjiang. Launched in the far western city of Kashgar in November 2013, “Project Beauty” uses surveillance photos of women to target those wearing veils and other head coverings. This summer, the public bus system in the northern town of Karamay banned passengers sporting long beards, veils, and hijabs. Chinese media were instructed not to “hype” the ban.

Earlier this week, the Urumqi Intermediate People’s Court sentenced eight others to death for their roles in attacks on a train station and a market earlier this year. Meanwhile, students of Ilham Tohti, the Uyghur scholar and activist whose life sentence for separatism was upheld last month, were given prison sentences of three to eight years for their involvement in his website “Uyghur Online” (uighurbiz.net).